The Cost of Cultural Free-Riders

The Cost of Cultural Free-Riders

Why Culture Matters Most by David C. Rose. Oxford University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 197 pages, $35. Reviewed by J. Daniel Hammond David Rose’s Why Culture Matters Most tackles a question that economists have been loath to take on—the connection between morals and...
The Six Communal Institutions and the Modern Economy

The Six Communal Institutions and the Modern Economy

Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain by James Bloodworth. Atlantic Books, 2019. paperback, 288 pages, $16. By Gerard T. Mundy Communal institutions keep the classical liberal–free market state from implosion. As the strength of what this essay identifies...
Hayek and the Liberty of Knowledge

Hayek and the Liberty of Knowledge

F. A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy, and Social Philosophy by Peter J. Boettke. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Hardcover, 323 pages, $120. Reviewed by Erik W. Matson In his 1960 book The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. Hayek (1899–1992) said, If old truths...
Surviving the Robot-Barons

Surviving the Robot-Barons

The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines by Jay W. Richards. Crown Forum, 2018. Hardcover, 209 pages, $23. Reviewed by Jacob Bruggeman College graduates, young professionals, and people making mid-career transitions to other...

Reading Sowell in the Badlands

Wealth, Poverty, and Politics: An International Perspective by Thomas Sowell. Basic Books, 2015. Hardcover, 244 pages plus notes and index, $30. Last summer, after more than two decades in Northern Virginia, I moved with my family to Germantown in northwest...